Ch. 2. Innate immunity Flashcards
(116 cards)
Innate immunity
Also called natural immunity, or native immunity. Protection against infection that relies on mechanisms that exist before infection, are capable of a rapid response to microbes, and react in essentially the same way to repeated infections.
The innate immune system includes epithelial barriers, phagocytic cells (neutrophils, macrophages), natural killer (NK) cells, the complement system, and cytokines, which are largely made by dendritic cells and mononuclear phagocytes.
Innate immune reactions also eliminate damaged and necrotic host tissues.
Inflammation
A complex reaction of vascularized tissue to infection or cell injury that involves extravascular accumulation of plasma proteins and leukocytes.
Acute inflammation is a common result of innate immune responses, and local adaptive immune responses can also promote inflammation.
Although inflammation serves a protective function in controlling infections and promoting tissue repair, it can also cause tissue damage and disease.
Pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs)
Structures produced by microorganisms but not mammalian (host) cells, which are recognized by and stimulate the innate immune system.
Examples include bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and viral double-stranded RNA.
Pattern recognition receptors (PRRs)
Signaling receptors of the innate immune system that recognize PAMPs and DAMPs, and thereby activate innate immune responses.
Examples include Toll-like receptors (TLRs) and NOD-like receptors (NLRs).
Damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs)
Endogenous molecules that are produced by or released from damaged and dying cells that bind to pattern recognition receptors and stimulate innate immune responses.
Examples include high-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) protein, extracellular ATP, and uric acid.
Infarction
The death of tissue due to loss of its blood supply.
About how many types of innate immune receptors are there?
It is estimated that there are about 100 types of innate immune receptors that are capable of recognizing about 1,000 PAMPs and DAMPs.
Toll-like receptors (TLRs)
A family of pattern recognition receptors of the innate immune system that are expressed on the surface and in endosomes of many cell types and that recognize microbial structures, such as endotoxin and viral RNA, and transduce signals that lead to the expression of inflammatory and antiviral genes.
How many Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are there in vertebrates?
In vertebrates, there are ten different TLRs specific for different components of microbes.
TLR-2
Recognizes several glycolipids and peptidoglygans that are made by gram-positive bacteria and some parasites.
TLR-3
Recognizes double-stranded RNA.
TLR-7 and TLR-8
Recognize single-stranded RNA.
TLR-4
Recognizes bacterial LPS (endotoxin), made by gram-negative bacteria.
TLR-5
Recognizes a bacterial flagellar protein called flagellin.
TLR-9
Recognizes unmethylated CpG DNA, which is abundant in microbial genomes.
What are the most important transcription factors activated by TLRs?
Transcription factors of the nuclear factor KB (NF-KB) family and the interferon regulatory factors (IRFs).
Nuclear factor KB (NF-KB) family
A family of transcription factors composed of homodimers or heterodimers of proteins homologous to the c-Rel protein. NF-KB proteins are required for the inducible transcription of many genes important in both innate immunity and adaptive immunity.
Interferon regulatory factors (IRFs)
A family of transcription factors that are activated by TLR signals and stimulate production of type I interferons, which are cytokines that inhibit viral replication.
NOD-like receptors (NLRs)
A family of cytosolic multidomain proteins that sense cytosolic PAMPs and DAMPs and recruit other proteins to form signaling complexes that promote inflammation.
What do NOD1 and NOD2 recognize, and what response do they initiate?
They both recognize peptides derived from bacterial cell wall peptidoglycans, and in response, they generate signals that activate NF-KB transcription factor, which promotes expression of genes encoding inflammatory proteins.
Defensins
Cysteine-rich peptides produced by epithelial barrier cells in the skin, gut, lung, and other tissues and in neutrophil granules that act as broad-spectrum antibiotics to kill a wide variety of bacteria and fungi.
The synthesis of defensins is increased in response to stimulation of innate immune system receptors such as Toll-like receptors and inflammatory cytokines such as IL-1 and TNF.
Inflammasome
A multiprotein complex in the cytosol of mononuclear phagocytes, dendritic cells, and other cell types that proteolytically generates the active form of IL-1B from the inactive pro-IL-1B precursor.
The formation of the inflammasome complex, one variety of which includes NLRP3 (a NOD-like pattern recognition receptor), the ASC (apoptosis associated speck like protein containing a CARD domain) adaptor and procaspase-1, is stimulated by a variety of microbial products, cell damage-associated molecules, and crystals.
NLR-family proteins (sensors)
There are many different types of inflammasomes, most of which use one of ten different NLR-family proteins as sensors.
These sensors directly recognize microbial products in the cytosol or sense changes in the amount of endogenous molecules or ions in the cytosol that indirectly indicate the presence of infection or cell damage.
AIM-family proteins (DNA sensors)
Some inflammasomes use sensors that are not in the NLR family.